Last Saturday, September 19, FORTS marked its 8th anniversary. On its first day of trading market participants were offered the opportunity to trade in four equity futures contracts (on Gazprom, RAO "UES of Russia", ??? "LUKOIL" and Surgutneftegas stocks) and 2 option contracts on futures underlined by Gazprom and RAO "UES of Russia" stocks. On September 19, 2001 the participants executed 673 trades with a value of 65.2 million roubles or 2.2 million US dollars.
The creation of FORTS became a new impetus for the introduction and further development of derivatives in Russia. Derivatives continue to grow even more popular with both individuals and professional asset managers as they allow investors to build complicated and profitable strategies. With the help of futures and options it is possible to hedge currency risks, invest in oil, gold, silver, platinum and palladium as well as to buy and sell stocks of the top liquid Russian issuers.
Over time FORTS’ product offering has expanded by more than 8 times, and the number of trades has grown by 400 times on average, while the trading volume increased by 30 times. FORTS has become a leading derivatives market in Eastern Europe in terms of derivatives trading volume and is one of the major global trading venues in this segment.
In addition, FORTS was the first Russian trading platform to implement world-class exchange technologies. From the very start CCP trading was launched on FORTS. Following this, FORTS introduced an intraday clearing session, portfolio margining and an evening trading session, futures-style options – technologies that are still unique in the Russian market. As a result the risk management system of FORTS managed to demonstrate its reliability and high quality during the economic downturn in 2008.
RTS Stock Exchange would like to use this opportunity to express its gratitude to everyone who has supported us during the years and congratulate FORTS participants on the occasion.